[recalibrating] introducing....HEATHEN

VILLAIN has a new name, but it remains the same world.

when I discovered I was nonbinary under the scorpio full moon (2025), I contemplated renaming myself, Heathen, I love how it rolled off the tongue as softly as Eden…but the thought of introductions made my skin crawl. So instead, she dug into my flesh and took root into my psyche until I was ready to understand her place in my life.

still from "No Chill" by PARTYNEXTDOOR

the birth of HEATHEN took over 14 months to gestate, eager to arrive under the aquarius full moon.

it’s my baby. a name. a world. a concept. a void. a becoming.

it also happens to be another word for Villain, a word I’ve been reclaiming for several years now.

so is this the end of Villain?

no, it’s a reimagining.

with each villainous post, I found myself slipping away and meeting at the edges of the comic and the film credits of the maniac––explaining instead of going straight into the work…to choose yourself over expectations and comfort.

my entire world is inspired by my inner teenager, the one who got stripped away from the big city and landed in a small town with one street. I did what any other sixteen year old would do and daydreamed of the life I could have if I just had the chance to escape. I performed on imaginary stages, gazed out windows, and danced in mirrors while I planned my getaway.

It was the moment I turned eighteen that I learned how to speak up for myself against the people who tried to keep me small. I packed my iPod and left on a Greyhound bus with two suitcases and a dream. upon my arrival in new york city, I took that same grit and ended up in multiple magazines, attending private dinners, and checking into vip after-parties on the weekends.

I’ll be thirty-two soon and the only constant in my life has been learning how to live being seen as a “bad person”. Not because I think good and bad are actual identities, but what that incessant idea does to the identity of the sensitive, misunderstood person. How we are constantly fighting up against what others think of us, and in return, cradle the death of ourselves.

speak your mind? aggressive. say nothing at all? intimidating. try something new? poser. do something unexpected? confusing. look good? bitch. look bad? monster. question everything? evil.

this push and pull has kept me on my toes all my life, and while I may not know what life has in store, if I am remembered as someone who inspired others to choose themselves in a world built off of suppression, I’ll know that I left this world a little better than when I found it.

To be a soul guiding others back home to themselves.

The Ring (2002)

That’s what HEATHEN is, a reclamation of what it means to be bad. to not fit in. to think beyond what society told you to be. a familiar feeling that’s met in the daydreams of those in small towns with small minds.

a new home.